Schedule of Events | Symposia

The effects of concept familiarity on event memory in healthy aging

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 5:00 – 7:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Jamie Snytte¹ (jamie.snytte@mail.mcgill.ca), Can Fenerci¹, Matthew D. Grilli², Mary A. Peterson², M. Natasha Rajah³, Signy Sheldon¹; ¹McGill University, ²University of Arizona, ³Toronto Metropolitan University

When encoding events in the real world, we often rely on our familiarity with the concepts present in an event to help construct an episodic memory. There are indications that older adults (OA) use their concept familiarity more readily than young adults (YA), possibly as a means to offset episodic memory deficits. However, other work has suggested that an overreliance on concept familiarity that comes with age results in the formation of more gist-like, or less specific memories. To test these ideas in the context of event memory, we conducted two pre-registered experiments in which YA and OA groups encoded two sets of video clips: one set depicted scenarios containing concepts more familiar to the YA group, and one set depicted scenarios containing concepts more familiar to the OA group. For both sets of videos, memory was tested 24-hours later with two recognition memory tasks, assessing memory for narrative and perceptual information. For the narrative task, results revealed that age-matched concept familiarity enhanced memory accuracy for both the OA and YA groups. For the perceptual recognition task, however, only the YA group showed enhanced memory accuracy for their age-matched video clip. Together, these experiments suggest that concept familiarity can offset typical age-related declines in the ability to recall specific details, but only when probing narrative information.

Topic Area: LONG-TERM MEMORY: Episodic